tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6616959642391988608.post4334586439785584674..comments2018-03-19T17:02:40.877-07:00Comments on Calafia Beach Pundit: A weak dollar points to need for supply-side policiesScott Grannishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14028519647946868684noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6616959642391988608.post-92193891127203214332012-07-09T13:30:40.134-07:002012-07-09T13:30:40.134-07:00&quot;example to me how taking wealth from product...&quot;example to me how taking wealth from productive people and distributing it to non-productive people is going encourage wealth creation?&quot;<br /><br />PD, I couldn&#39;t agree more. Some of the most non-productive people I ever ran across in the work place were senior managers, protected by more vulnerable middle managers who actually worked on projects and had their asses on the line.Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06365403570563730880noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6616959642391988608.post-33345372962417257372012-07-07T10:33:28.898-07:002012-07-07T10:33:28.898-07:00One of you Lefties example to me how taking wealth...One of you Lefties example to me how taking wealth from productive people and distributing it to non-productive people is going encourage wealth creation?<br /><br />Demand is down because the wealth creators are being targeted by the Maoists regime in Washington. Obama brought the recession and it will end when he is gone.PD Dennisonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10012560806774461700noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6616959642391988608.post-65348269583529218742012-07-06T06:00:06.880-07:002012-07-06T06:00:06.880-07:00@Benjamin, the Libertarian Party is at least intel...@Benjamin, the Libertarian Party is at least intellectually honest -- more at:<br /><br />http://www.lp.org/Dr William J McKibbinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10545798495680527622noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6616959642391988608.post-25916357169586515142012-07-05T22:24:49.713-07:002012-07-05T22:24:49.713-07:00It is sad to see GOP orthodoxy become dogma---that...It is sad to see GOP orthodoxy become dogma---that somehow money is &quot;loose.&quot;<br /><br />Too many on the right conflate &quot;tight money&quot; with restricting the growth of the federal government (the latter I concur with, more so than the current GOP does).<br /><br />Inflation and interest rates are at record lows---this is not loose money at work, by any standard that makes sense.<br /><br />As for the exchange rate of the dollar, I do not want parity with the yen. The Bank of Japan is zealously asphyxiating their economy. Who wants to imitate that?<br /><br />Other nations may follow money policies that are too loose or too tight, and we should not seek parity. We should look at out fundamentals---inflation, asset values, interest rates---and we will see that money is now tight.<br /><br />What is crazy about this is that the GOP likes to say it is a business-like party. Any businessman would leap at a chance to monetize debt with no ill consequences---like right now. Evidently, the economy (global economy remember0)is so slack we can monetize trillions in debt with no inflationary pressures, and release our children from financial burdens unwisely assumed. It may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity being squandered by GOP and D-Party nitwits.<br /><br />So far, QE1 and QE2 has resulted in extremely low inflation rates and record low mortgage rates, while property and equities are dead in the water. This is not the hyper-inflation predicted by the hysterics. The inflation scaremongers have simply been wrong. <br /><br />Indeed, plotting QE1 and QE2 against gold prices shows gold breaks when we started QE 1/2. What does that tell you? That gold prices have little to do with USA monetary policy. <br /><br />I wish I had a party to vote for.Benjaminhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14001038338873263877noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6616959642391988608.post-13362916200482358662012-07-05T18:14:27.214-07:002012-07-05T18:14:27.214-07:00PS. What I mean by &quot;better off&quot;... will...PS. What I mean by &quot;better off&quot;... will our children, and their children, have more opportunities and a better life, if we redistribute more wealth.randyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16368254229927808998noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6616959642391988608.post-80032396954925468772012-07-05T17:53:29.473-07:002012-07-05T17:53:29.473-07:00Joe,
Interesting comments. In your opinion, what...Joe,<br /><br />Interesting comments. In your opinion, what were the key govt policies that resulted in the fluctuations of wealth distribution? It sure seems reasonable that the growing divide isn&#39;t right. Are the ill effects of that solved by simple redistribution - taking cash from rich and giving to the non-rich? Is that accomplished by refundable tax credits? If that cash is spent on more and better consumables is America really better off?randyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16368254229927808998noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6616959642391988608.post-46941586875449000962012-07-05T17:43:17.472-07:002012-07-05T17:43:17.472-07:00The correlation (if correct) you cite between weal...The correlation (if correct) you cite between wealth concentration and subsequent collapses does not proved that wealth concentration caused the collapses. Milton Friedman and Ben Bernanke would say that the Depression was caused by bad monetary policies. Others cite a global trade war as a cause. Still others cite bad fiscal policy (raising taxes and spending too much money) as a cause. Wealth concentration is more like an endogenous variable (i.e., the result of other things) than an exogenous variable (the driver of other things). <br /><br />But I reiterate that there is never any such thing as &quot;too much demand&quot; or &quot;too little demand.&quot; Obama&#39;s &quot;stimulus&quot; bill was a grand experiment in Keynesian pump-priming and it was a complete failure.Scott Grannishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14028519647946868684noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6616959642391988608.post-33275683614997360042012-07-05T17:06:20.276-07:002012-07-05T17:06:20.276-07:00Scott: this seems too ideological and can IMO be d...Scott: this seems too ideological and can IMO be disproved by a simple test with history. We know that 1929 and today income and wealth is heavily concentrated with the rich. In between these two points in history, a low for this concentration was reached in the later 1970s. In both cases 1929 and 2008, a deflationary collapse resulted. At the opposite point in time, the 1970s, an inflationary crisis resulted.<br />Therefore, I I gree that around the late 1970s was the right time for supply-side economics. Too much money was concentrated with average Joe = too much demand and too little with the rich = too little supply. The result was stagflation.<br />Today, however, we are at the opposite extreme, so we need an opposite policy. The key is to apply the right kind of policy at the right situation and not become ideological.Joehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17141887720434208291noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6616959642391988608.post-73331145827718736772012-07-05T16:31:23.544-07:002012-07-05T16:31:23.544-07:00Joe: you are infected with the Keynesian demand-si...Joe: you are infected with the Keynesian demand-side virus which has caused the world&#39;s major economies to falter. You can&#39;t spend your way to prosperity. Today&#39;s problem is not a lack of demand. Billionaires don&#39;t have bags of money sitting around idle that can be redistributed to the poor. Every dime that is earned is always spent by someone, ultimately. Either the person earning it spends it, or he must in one way or another give the unspent portion of his income to some else in the form of a loan or an investment, and that someone ends up spending it. <br /><br />The only way to increase the size of the economic pie is to produce more with the same scarce resources. That involves investment and risk taking and hard work.Scott Grannishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14028519647946868684noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6616959642391988608.post-60069977566464877622012-07-05T15:01:00.928-07:002012-07-05T15:01:00.928-07:00Actually, what is needed at a time where the top 1...Actually, what is needed at a time where the top 1% have increased their share of national income and whealth as last seen in 1929 is a sweeping demand-side policy. The problem is the lack of demand and why invest in anything if nobody can buy the stuff? First we need a massive redistribution of income and whealth, so we have again enough buying power by the masses, which lost real income for about 15 years now. As per the long-forgotten Marriner Eccless:<br />&quot;As mass production has to be accompanied by mass consumption, mass consumption, in turn, implies a distribution of wealth ... to provide men with buying power. ... Instead of achieving that kind of distribution, a giant suction pump had by 1929-30 drawn into a few hands an increasing portion of currently produced wealth. ... The other fellows could stay in the game only by borrowing. When their credit ran out, the game stopped.&quot;Joehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17141887720434208291noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6616959642391988608.post-11749922457879843802012-07-05T11:19:28.126-07:002012-07-05T11:19:28.126-07:00give the private sector a chance to work its magic...<i>give the private sector a chance to work its magic</i><br /><br />Real private nonresidential investment in <a href="http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/fredgraph.pdf?&amp;chart_type=line&amp;graph_id=&amp;category_id=&amp;recession_bars=On&amp;width=630&amp;height=378&amp;bgcolor=%23b3cde7&amp;graph_bgcolor=%23ffffff&amp;txtcolor=%23000000&amp;ts=8&amp;preserve_ratio=true&amp;fo=ve&amp;id=NRIPDCA&amp;transformation=lin&amp;scale=Left&amp;range=Max&amp;cosd=1995-01-01&amp;coed=2011-01-01&amp;line_color=%230000ff&amp;link_values=&amp;mark_type=NONE&amp;mw=4&amp;line_style=Solid&amp;lw=1&amp;vintage_date=2012-07-05&amp;revision_date=2012-07-05&amp;mma=0&amp;nd=&amp;ost=&amp;oet=&amp;fml=a&amp;fq=Annual&amp;fam=avg&amp;fgst=lin" rel="nofollow">equipment and software</a> is working just fine. Should they build more structures that would remain empty?marmicohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08277071086056574486noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6616959642391988608.post-66409055288787172862012-07-05T10:39:05.201-07:002012-07-05T10:39:05.201-07:00If austerity is to work, it&#39;s time to talk abo...If austerity is to work, it&#39;s time to talk about double-digit wage decreases in America, especially for those in the public sector -- I was an early advocate for monetary expansion, but now that austerity is plan for the future, now would be a good time to get started on public wage reductions -- the more savage the cuts, the more likely that austerity will work to reverse the world&#39;s economic woes...Dr William J McKibbinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10545798495680527622noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6616959642391988608.post-43611328474151791172012-07-05T09:47:52.708-07:002012-07-05T09:47:52.708-07:00Do you agree with the WSJ opinion piece today whic...Do you agree with the WSJ opinion piece today which argues that loose monetary policy caused the 2008 panic and that current policy may result in another panic?Billhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06910619601367464068noreply@blogger.com